Invertebrates in the Sock Pile......

Well fellow travelers, and by 'travelers' I mean 'people who read this here little corner of my mind'.....and by 'fellow' I meant 'that guy who keeps coughing in the corner of this here coffee house', and by 'this here coffee house' I mean.......uh......pretty much what I said. I am in one of my new favorite coffee bars called Cafe Europa, supposed to be writing a list of things to pack up from my surviving storage items.....but I couldn't help but blog a little, seeing as it's been a while since I've had the opportunity to do so.

My keyboard is covered with dust.......it's amazing how easy it is not to notice that until the sun actually hits it just right........of course this has nothing to do with anything, but man! Really! I could collect all of it and make one hell of a bunny......an undead bunny of keyboard dust to walk aimlessly around the plains looking for it's purpose......latching onto people it encounters and absorbing their ideas and traits as it's own for short periods of time until spotting another victim and hopping onto them..........
.......actually, this now sounds like someone I dated before which is creeping me out. I will leave the dust where it is.

Like I mentioned above, I should be making a list of things of my surviving possessions. The reason for this is that I am FINALLY making my way back to Pennsylvania to get it all and bring it here. I am both giddy with anticipation and soiled with my own filth of apprehension over this. The giddiness comes from the obvious, just the fact of acquiring my car and possessions again and completing this here move once and for all. As much as I hate moving, I have to admit that I love the act of actually being moved, or the unpacking. I am so looking forward to finally getting my own corner in Denver and making it my own. I've always loved getting a new place and going through the process of making it my own....rethinking how things should go and where. I've always been amazed by the people that I've known who take weeks (or longer) to actually unpack after moving, because it usually takes me anywhere from a matter of hours to at most a matter of days considering on the circumstances. And in this case I anticipate the reward to be compounded by a wave of relief of actually finally being moved fully to Denver and shedding the feeling of being 'in between' places, or rather, being 'in the process' of moving like I've felt for near the whole year.
Now, the soiled feeling comes from two sources, neither of which have anything to do with actually soiling myself, which I haven't done for at least twenty minutes. The first comes from actually seeing my stored possessions. I've only been told of the damage and the losses, I have yet to see this for myself, which I'm not sure I'm ready for. The list of damage has near doubled since the initial claim. It seems like every time I talk to the Insurance or to my folks I get a few more items added to the list, usually with a precursor of "Where you terribly attached to "blank"?" With this fact in mind, I'm certain to personally discover even more loss when finally reuniting with my stuff. And even though I've resigned myself with this fact, that doesn't mean I can be fully prepared.
The second half of this soiled feeling has to do with the actual move itself. I have given myself only one full week to accomplish everything.....which, in short, consists of flying into Pittsburg, meeting with the Insurance Rep and stabbing him in the throat, hiding the body, going through my stuff and salvaging what can be while discarding the rest, repacking what I'm keeping, lying to authorities that come looking for missing Rep, driving from Central Pennsylvania to Denver.
I plan on drinking a lot of coffee.....moreso than what I consume on a daily basis now.

But, in all honesty, the anticipation does far outway the dread. I have felt in between places for FAR too long, and I'm looking forward to starting the process of growing some roots again.....or at least getting to the point where I feel less compelled to write blogs about where I'm at mentally and physically and get back to writing the nonsence I used to write about........like being cut from a Jib and whatnot.

Stop Stabbing the Sponge....

Just a quick update to let everyone know that I'm alive (barely) and that I have been promised that it's not as infected as it looks or feels. A quick update due to the fact that I'm writing this right now from a coffee house here in the wonderful world of Denver, because I don't have internet access in the new temporary place. The good news is that, unlike Brooklyn which charged me near $12 an hour for internet and then laughed at me and punched me til I wet my pants, internet access is free here!!! There are coffee houses and bars and restaraunts and what nots that all offer free wifi! Praise the dead baby god in the barrel in the sky, with a mouthful of noodles! I'll stop that now.....sorry.

So, here comes the update:

Wait for it.......wait for it.......

First, the move from the pit of Westminster to Denver is finally over.....at least somewhat. I am sharing a spot with my drunk brother for a few months, taking my time and looking for a place of my own, where I can strip naked and make as many muffins as I see fit. I look forward to those days, as I'm sure you don't care. I say 'somewhat' above because of the fact that my brother still has items to move into the new place, and I still have a mass moving of my soggy and ruined stuff from Pennsylvania to look forward to.
But I am OUT of Westminster! And finally in Denver, which I have to say is my new favorite place. More on that later.........wait for it.......

Second, I think that I really dig my new job, all but the fact that it doesn't pay as much as I would like. Everyone that I work with is cool and refrain from throwing stuff at me when I'm not looking which is always a plus. One of the best things about working at an art supply store is that you work with other artists and creative types.....and you get to deal with artists as customers.....you also have to deal with 70 year old craft experts who come in to show you the hundreds of watercolor paintings they've done of thier cats, but I can live with that.

Third.....there is no third.

Fourth, I was lucky enough to be a part of my first group show here in Denver last night. A few of the people that I work with put on an art/music/poetry slam at a bar called Three Kings, in the basement gallery space. They have been organizing this event for a while, but I didn't hear about it until the beginning of the week. They were really cool to let me be a part of it, and tolerant enough to still put my piece up at the very last second (it took me all week to finish the drawing, matt and frame it).
The show was monkey themed....that is, monkey themed. Do I really need to go into more explaination?
I wish that I could share some images with you all here, but I haven't had the chance to get any of them onto this here computing machine.....so I'll have to share later.
The show was a blast and I seemed to get a really good response from everyone for the drawing. There were some amazing work on the walls. The whole experience has finally inspired me to start building a new body of work again after losing all of it to the storage disaster, so hopefully I'll have some drawing updates to share in the near future.

Fifth, please send me all your money. I is the poor right now.

Sixth, yes, I realize that my profile is looking pretty fucked lately. It seems that my web host has a problem with proper billing. I have been offline for a few days, and it seems that my bill for the next two years became due. Unlike most companies who will inform you weeks in advance that a bill is coming up, my host works like this: "Dear Fisher, you hosting fee is due....riiiiiight......NOW! Oooo late."
Fuckers.
So, I paid the fees today and await the suspension to be lifted in the next few days.
Fuckers.

Seventh, I haven't had the chance to work on the new zombiespoon ideas that many of you have given me. The moving has made that difficult.

.....and that's about it in a nut pouch. I leave you all now to talk amongst yourselves, as I need to update all kinds of accounts with my new address and phone number and what not.

While Dawning a Circumstance-Skin Coat.....

Recently I learned the "Pull my Finger" gambit that everyone has been talking about. For those of you who have yet to experience this exciting flavor of Pop Culture, allow me to ruin the surprise for you....it makes the "pullee", or the initiator, fart. Hot damn! That is funny! "Pull my finger!" - "Uh, ok? Oh! That's great.....you farted. Wow. You farted right when I pulled. Good for you. You're like a machine. Just like a white trash robot with a switch that makes you seem to shit in your pants. I'm going to walk away now and never speak to you again."
I realize that many of you probably already know this trick, and are wondering how it might be that I didn't. Well, in truth, I have heard of it before, it just meant something completely different in my family. It's not that I didn't grow up with the one family member who got drunk at family gatherings and asked all the kids to pull his finger....it's just that when the finger in question was actually tugged upon, the free hand was used to put a shiv in the belly of the unfortunate puller. Needless to say, we all fell for this trick only once, either because we were clever enough to associate "Pull my Finger" with terrible pain and emergency room visits, or because we died. That uncle was the most feared person in my family.

I suppose that today is the official moving day into Denver....Part 1, that is. The actual apartment that my brother is willing to share with me for a few months (until Corinne, his wife to be, is out of her lease and switches places with me) won't actually be available until this Tuesday the 13th. But, due to circumstances beyond our control --which, if one were to think about it, is the very nature of circumstances...for those who actually do have control over them refer to them as 'events' or sometimes 'occurrences', though occurrences are rare to see in the wild these days, having been hunted to near extinction for their valuable pelts and medicinal horns-- we feel it best to leave this condo a few days early.
So, today is the official moving day into Denver....Part 1; into the living room of Corinne and her roommate, Allie's, apartment in Capital Hill. Part 2 will be moving everything again into the new apartment come Tuesday. Part 3, which is mine and mine alone, will come a month or two later into my own studio, hopefully staying within Capital Hill. I'm tired already....if only I had some Occurrence Horn Powder to add to my coffee.

In other newses: I started working full time at a place called Meiningers in Denver, pushing all sorts of art supplies and art supply related materials....hoping to eventually be promoted to the "upstairs" in the admin portion of the company....still trying to figure out who to sleep with for that.
I enjoy the job, though it's retail, mainly due to the people I work with, and the people who come in. Plus, I'll be getting a great discount on items that I'll be slowly replacing from the storage disaster.

Speaking of which....still fighting the insurance company over the amount of what my lost art and supplies are/were worth. Example: they offered an amount of $15 an hour towards the hours worked on the very large drawings that I had lost. Fine, I thought. Then I explained that one drawing in particular took near 90 hours (this was a 24" x 36" pen and ink drawing), they responded that there was no way it could have taken more than 2 hours.....to which I said "Pull my finger."

I should be finally getting the remaining possessions from Pennsylvania by the end of August....I suppose that that would count as moving Part 3a....moving Part 3b being the move into my own studio in a few months....in case any of you need to make a note of it, which, in all honesty, would frighten me if you did.

And finally, there's a good chance that I'll be minus internet access for a while due to the combinations of moving.....I'm already getting the shakes.....but that could also be due to the loss of blood from my sucking chest wound.......fucking uncle!

The Story of Soggy Toast....in Ten Parts...Part Ten

Part Ten: the Mummified Sex Toy in the Coffee Grounds

Taxidermy has always been a strange and guilty fascination of mine. I have always found myself drawn to those beasts that I've encountered in stores and homes, mesmerized by their perfectly preserved and posed existence. I have even, on many occasions, given serious thought to taking the practice up and learning the art; and while I don't condone or even understand hunting, especially as a 'sport' or more so as using the kill for nothing more than a trophy for bragging rights, I have to admit being in awe and captivated by the said trophies.
The closest I've really ever come to this work or art form is digitally, with Photoshop. For years I've had a love of finding as many usable animal pics as I can and then digitally altering them, usually combining two or more animals together to create something new.

I've called this process my Taxidermy mainly due to the fact that it would be exactly what I'd be doing with real preserved animals, had I ever learned the technique. This is also my favorite practice in Photoshop, which is, combining images together and trying to make it appear seamless and plausible. I use it almost daily for a variety of reasons, not just for my Taxidermy projects: I've done it for my recent book cover designs like the cover of Tonic (the winged bottle) in my last post; I've used it professionally in some of the commercial work that I've done in the past; and it's even the technique behind my online avatar.

This has been a post that I have been intending to do for a long time. Actually, this is a post that I should have done a while back, that is, the story behind my thumbnail picture. I can't even count the number of times I've been asked what it is, if it's real and why it got the name 'zombiespoon'. I have seriously lost track. Will this post stop the influx of those queries? No, probably not at all. But, after posting this I'll add the link to my collection of quick-links in order to quickly point the askers here, seeing as my responses to the questions have gone from detailed answers in the beginning to one word responses as of late.

First there is the name 'zombiespoon'. Basically, this came from a day of frustration, many years ago, when trying to come up with an online moniker that hadn't already been chosen by a few hundred, if not few thousand, people before. I'm sure most of you remember originally typing in your name somewhere online only to have it returned to you followed by a large number indicating how many of you already exist out there. It's a frustrating process.
So, rather than settle with being the 389^th of anything, I started plugging in whatever different ideas came to mind. This took more time than I could have possibly expected (are you aware that at that time there were already over a hundred "eggfuckers" out there?). Finally after much frustration, I typed in zombiespoon....and it came back clean.
Exciting so far, isn't it? Just wait, it only gets better.....well, no....actually it doesn't.

Next, the doll.
The doll itself is real, and was a gift to me by a friend. I have a great fondness for strange, old and weathered dolls and collect them.

As you can see, the actual doll is completely faceless. This picture is a still from a short movie I did when testing out my new webcam.
I had been using the name zombiespoon for a good while before the thumbnail that you see today was ever actually conceived. Mostly on another social networking website known as LouisvilleMojo, which was much like myspace, only for people residing in Louisville, and where the lonely, large and socially inept could meet online and anonymously hate on one another. Great fun!
I changed my thumbnail picture regularly, until the day I was goofing off and quickly added a cat's mouth to that still.

Almost at once, the people that I conversed with, or made fun of, started referring to the doll image itself as zombiespoon. The image and the name became one on their own, which was fine to me.
That image remained unchanged until around the time that I discovered myspace. I just felt that the zombiespoon doll needed a bit of refining, an upgrade. The zombiespoon that you see today is the combination of the same doll pic merged with the distorted mouth of a piranha that I found online.

From here, I went a little insane. Starting slowly, by making holiday versions of the zombiespoon to post on their respectful days, to a period of mass creation of different zombiespoon personas....most of which haven't even been showed until now:

One would think that with this group I might have finally gotten it all out of my system, but no. I'm still looking for any excuse to alter the image into something else.....any suggestions for which will be appreciated and considered, altering this little guy has become one of my new favorite things to do....alongside drinking coffee and talking to inanimate objects.

Coming back to the art of taxidermy (true taxidermy, not my digital version of it), I have wanted to add the toothy mouth to the real doll for some time. I feel fairly confident in the fact that I could most likely sculpt one myself, using polymer clays and enamels with air brushes, but I have no idea what the best way to attach it to the doll would be, which is why I've been so hesitant. The last thing I'd want to do is to destroy the little guy (this is, of course, assuming that the doll survived the storage disaster....I'm still waiting to see and keeping my fingers crossed).
Several months ago I watched a program about the history and art of taxidermy. The show followed the timeline from the early techniques of the practice to the styles and skills of today. The part that intrigued me the most was near the end of the program, when they covered one of the newest techniques. There are taxidermists now out there that can create animals for you from a photograph, or even just from description. Using any of their hundreds of models and sheer artistry they can create almost any animal in any wanted pose using no part of a real critter. I watched in awe as one of these artists finished the detail work on the mouth of a carnivore in mid growl....no teeth, no bone....just pure sculpture.
Of course I thought of my zombiespoon guy.
At the time I was still in Pennsylvania, which seems like it would be a prime area for taxidermists, seeing as deer season seems to be a weekly occurrence and hunters will actually walk, armed, through neighborhoods and take down game in full view of nearby swing sets. But this was right before leaving to come to Denver, so I never got the opportunity to search.
I still plan to at least follow up on this idea, once I get settled here. I actually look forward to explaining what I want done to the unsuspecting taxidermist and studying his expression....and if he says no, I plan to follow up with asking him if he would instead be willing to create a monkey reading a Bible while a family of snakes escape from it's butt. Hell, this could be a new past time, asking taxidermists to create the most ridiculous of items.
"I was writing to inquire whether it would be possible for your company to recreate a three headed mouse fucking a door knob. Time is critical as this is to be an anniversary gift to my wife."


Finally, this was the last of my ten part directionless series, which was supposed to land on my 100^th MySpace blog post (LiveJournal readers....I have NO idea what post we're at), and it would have too, had I not witness the motorcycle accident that just recently stopped haunting me while I slept. So now, please join me in celebrating my 101^st post!
(blows into a party horn and throws dry ramen noodles in the air, not having confetti)

The Story of Soggy Toast....in Ten Parts...Part Nine

Part Nine: Curious Sounds from the Box

I have recently been thinking a lot about the different voices I have when writing. I imagine that this will be understandable to you other writers out there (in which I mean both professional as well as those who enjoy just to write a lot), I have been thinking about the different styles I write in, or voices, depending on what it is that I'm writing at the time. For example, this post right now. This is about as close to my regular voice (if we were to be speaking to one another) as I believe that I get in written form. Clint might argue against this, due to the fact that I'm apt to spontaneously make up voices or characters on a whim when speaking, most of which are lost when later trying to recall them, but Clint likes Bleach....which has nothing to do with what I'm writing about now.....so let's move on.
There is my "professional" writing voice, which is what I use when writing to figures of authority. Such as: "I don't believe this restraining order is just" letters, or when writing cover letters for my resume.
There is the voice in which I write my stories in, that is, the books that I'm working on or if only for the captions used under my drawings.
And there is my "street lunatic" voice....also known as Asher Willis Fim...my pseudonym I use when writing complaint letters to companies for no particular reason what so ever....or lately, for writing letters to the "Ask a Mexican" column that I find so entertaining in Denver's Westword weekly alt paper (none of which have been answered yet).

For those of you who are unaware, I currently have two blogs....that is, I post blogs from my MySpace profile as well as to my LiveJournal account. Originally, I had intended for the two to be separate from one another. My MySpace Blog was to be my regular voice of ramblings, thoughts and complaints....while my LiveJournal posts were to be more of the "works in progress" variety, somewhere between my regular voice and professional voice, and linked to my website (which, yes, is as of yet still unfinished goddamnit!). But the two have basically become one for the past year or so, due to the fact that my pursued profession (writing and illustrating) had basically been put on hold due to moving and the general feeling of being "ungrounded". So, instead of just leaving LiveJournal idle all of this time, I started just posting the same material in both. If you are reading this right now in LiveJournal, you can be sure that the same exact words are also lying in wait over in my MySpace Blog, and vice a versa.

That being said, I think it's due time to write an update on the work I've been doing, considering the fact that lately I've finally been doing a lot of writing and illustrating, feeling more grounded....or at least that I'm slowly finally landing on my feet. Granted, I'm landing on my feet now after stepping off of a twenty plus story building near two years ago, but landing on the feet nonetheless. I will refrain from writing this works in progress update in my newly acquired "landing" voice which would sound like:

"DEAR GOD THE PAIN!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF RELIGIOUS THINGS AND WHATNOT!!! I THINK MY FEMUR IS PROTRUDING FROM MY SKULL!!!!"

...because I doubt it would make for a good voice for such....that, and I plan to use it instead as my new "professional" voice from now on:

"OH DEAR SIRS FOR CHRIST'S SAKE....OR TO WHOM IT HURTS SO FUCKING BAD IT MIGHT CONCERN, I REGRET TO INFORM YOU AAAAAAAAA THAT I WILL NOT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THE PAIN BE ABLE TO ATTEND THE FUNCTION BECAUSE I'M LEAKING TOO MANY VITAL FLUIDS!!!!!"

Like I said, I have been working again now that the inspiration has returned, which, albeit, is kind of strange to me seeing as my regular mode seems to be to work during the Fall and Winter months and to become lethargic in the Spring and Summer. But whatever....use the Muse when she arrives. I recently decided to put aside the two novels that I've been working on for the past two years, the Sinking Stones as well as Angel Soup, due to the fact that they have become much more involved than I originally anticipated as well as the fact that after working sporadically on them during this transient period, my thoughts regarding them have become muddled and disjointed. Better to put them away for awhile and return to them fresh later.
Instead, I started working a few weeks ago on a book titled Tonic, which is actually a complete rethinking of a previously self published work titled Meresin's Brew. I printed Meresin's Brew back in '98, and it has been a work that has always kind of bothered me, partly because I always felt that I didn't put enough time into it. I did, I admit, rush the story and drawings for it, mainly because I wanted to get it out there...and even though I got good responses over it (mostly, I think, because it actually made more sense than the book I published right before it), it's always been a thorn in my spleen.

Above is the cover in progress for the book, still to be worked on, but this is the main idea for it. The first draft is near completion. Basically, the theme is the same: the main character finds an unlabled bottle at home, and the strange events that take place afterwards and as he drinks it....but I have reworked it to include a few other characters as well as more of a reason behind the events.
I hope to start the illustrations for it in the next few months, after I move the rest of the surviving possessions to Denver. I have been toying with the thought of making the individual chapters available to download for under a dollar each, or something....mainly because it might help me to illustrate it faster. I don't know, still mulling that thought over. Hopefully after publishing it, it will cease to haunt me.

I've also been working on cover ideas for the Crying Attic...

The above is the (as of yet) winning illustrated idea for the cover, in a rough mode. I have to admit, envisioning the cover for this book has been difficult, and I'm still struggling with ideas and concepts.
The actual story is finished, after having gone through a dozen or more rewrites, as well as 90% of the illustrations (I have been promised that these things have survived the storage disaster...and I REALLY hope that is true!). I have written about this story before, so to sum up, it is basically a ghost story told in three related acts that form a written Moebius Strip.
I'm looking forward to getting it here finally so that I can finish the work on it, hopefully having the cover design figured out in that time, and start working towards finally publishing it.

Bread is a fairy tale that has been in the back of my mind for years, taking many different shapes, but staying somewhat formless. About a week or so ago, I had some fun with some leftover bread ends, a few of which as shown below:

...and for some reason that I have no explanation for, the story suddenly came together. That, for me, is one of the more exciting aspects about writing fiction, when the story works itself out. I have had this happen with several of my projects (part of why I feel ok with the idea of putting work aside for a length of time when the writing gets stale or I find that I'm stuck on a part of the narration, sometimes the blurry parts become focused when I'm not looking at them) and it's always the same feeling I get when discovering a new author or just a new book that speaks to me. In a lot of ways being a writer of your own fiction makes you also the work's first audience.
The notes and ideas that I've had for Bread have been scattered all over the place, and I'm currently in the process of reorganizing them and outlining the story. I should start writing the first draft in the coming weeks.
Due to their part in the congealing of the book, I plan to use one of the bread guys for the cover photo....a new one with a handmade mask stitched into the bread; I've also been thinking of incorporating them into the drawings for the story, like little Easter Eggs.
The story itself can best be described with it's moral (as many fairy tales are apt to have): Be Careful What You Dream. It also will be written within the rule of threes, which any of you who have read and/or studied fairy tales will know, is one of the unwritten practices when writing them. Three little Pigs...the Three Bears in Goldylocks...the Three Questions Little Red Riding Hood asks....ect.

Other than working on these books, I have been crying in the shower a lot, but I promised myself that I wouldn't write about that in my blog....so you should probably forget I said anything.

Actually, I have been toying with the idea (which has now become more of a plan) to do away with my Etsy account, due to lack of use on my part, and just starting an Ebay storefront where I'll post drawings and handmade items for sale. This won't be happening until I get my possessions from Pennsylvania and see who the survivors are. When built, the store will contain original drawings, handmade dolls and puppets I've been doing.....and preserved bread wearing masks (you THINK that I'm kidding!)

I'm also working on a post about doing what has been dubbed as the Portraits Project on an on order basis....

...but again, this is on hold for the moment until after relocating to Denver and getting a little more situated. I'll definitely explain more about this in the near future.

Lastly, I have been goofing off with photoshop....that is, I've always wanted to alter photos of people into versions of what they'd look like as my drawings. Here is an example I did quickly:

....Unfortunately, finding the right photos to do this with is a LOT harder than I thought it would be. I no longer have an account with Photos.com, which would have been great for images. So, if anyone has any leads to good free photo sites that contain head shots of people (preferably with no backgrounds), let me know.

Only one blog post to go!